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I bought a sofa for a friend which cost £250. It turned out not to be suitable and they sold it a couple of weeks later for £100. Who should get the money?

Unfortunately the MSE team can't always answer money moral dilemma questions as contributions are often emailed in or suggested in person. They are intended to be enjoyed as a point of debate and discussed at face value.

If you bought the sofa as a gift for them, they are entitled to keep the money that they sold it for, regardless of what you paid.

If, however, you bought it on their behalf with them agreeing to pay you back, you really needed to set up a loan agreement between yourselves for a set installment amount each week/month to ensure the legality i believe. If this was not done, i am not really sure you would be able to claim back the cost of the sofa.

You tried to do a nice thing for a friend by buying the sofa and now that you know it was sold shortly after, I'm assuming you don't feel your gesture was appreciated. I would fee the same! I don't think however, you have a right to the £100 as the sofa was in fact a gift and your friends can do with it what they want but I don't agree with how your friends dealt with the unwanted sofa. Selling it shortly after they received it and telling you how much they got for it was disrespectful to you and ill-mannered at best. I can only suggest, in future, to stay away from giving costly presents to friends.

You say you bought it for a friend, so I assume it was in the form of a gift rather than a loan while he or she saved to pay it back. If that's the case, then the money's his/hers and you have no claim to it.

Either way, something's a bit odd when the sofa "as new" fetched less than half what you paid for it a few weeks before. Maybe you bought it from a shop, and it was sold privately. But what I don't understand is why you bought something that your friend should have known beforehand was not
going to be suitable. Didn't he/she get to see it?!

It sounds as though you bought this to help out a friend in which case they should have spoken to you first before selling the sofa on. It appears they have come across somewhat ungrateful and yes should of returned the money. On the other hand if it was bought as a gift then asking for money would be like asking for a present back. Either way these 'friends' are rather thoughtless! Sorry for your predicament

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